O Rompe Nuvens

Talkative Navy balloonist Ned Trumpet (Wallace Beery) falls out of his basket into the middle of nowhere. He befriends farm boy Jess Weaver. He has been telling tall tales about his fictional son which gets more and more elaborate. In reality, he never got himself a family. He tries to recruit Jess into the service and then Jess reveals a lame leg. He introduces unsuspecting Cathey Cortland (Jan Clayton) to Jess. Before he knows it, he has his fictional family.

This is Wallace Beery being Wallace Beery in a lower level wartime war movie. The family story is sentimentality mixed with Beery's sweet brutishness. I'm perfectly happy with that part. The war fighting is less convincing and the military drama is less engaging. It's fine for some wartime fare.

This wartime film follows a formula that MGM used on quite a few Wallace Beery films. Once again the over-age and over-weight Beery is supposed to be a career military guy. However, the big difference in this film is that his Navy man is with the Lighter Than Air service--balloons that were used for submarine patrols. I can't think of another movie that dealt with this important branch of the Navy--even though 12,000 men served with this service and they were incredibly successful.

Beery plays Ned Trumpet--a guy who is pretty much the same as he played in other films of the genre. He's got a heart of gold but also lies like a rug--and when his friend/rival Jimmy (James Gleason) talks about the exploits of his son, Ned talks all about his as well. The problem is that Ned NEVER was married nor has any kids! So, after meeting a nice young man, Jess (Tom Drake), he decides to unofficially adopt him and begins telling his friends about how great 'his boy' is! What Ned doesn't know is that Jess is disabled and cannot walk--and Ned's plans for Jess following him into the LTA service appear impossible. But, thanks to a nice-guy doctor who thinks he can cure Jess, the man is able to join the service. This only takes us to about midway through the film--what happens next is for you to see for yourself. Rest assured, however, that like most of these other films, it involves redemption and incredible coincidences!

Overall, like all the Beery military films, it's high on propaganda but also on entertainment. Sure, it does follow the formula, but it's well made and enjoyable throughout.

By the way, I read up on this and found that during WWII there was a single case where a blimp that was sunk by a sub. They lost one crew member in the attack. Otherwise, the blimps were incredibly successful and had a huge advantage over the subs and lost hardly a ship during their escort duties.

Only Wallace Beery could have sold this film even to wartime audiences for MGM. In This Man's Navy Beery plays an old time sailor with the dirigible lighter than air unit of the navy relegated to a lot of minor support duties.

Beery brags about his non-existent family so when put to the test once by his pal James Gleason, Beery comes up with a pretend wife in Selena Royle and son Tom Drake whose farm he visited after bailing out of a balloon. The two of them amazingly enough are flattered by Beery's attention and Drake likes having a father figure almost real.

In the end Beery gets to rescue Drake when both are serving in China although let us say despite his praise of dirigibles the weakness of them in combat is rather graphically exposed.

Beery and Gleason are a fine team and play well off each other. This Man's Navy is also an opportunity to see both Wallace and Noah Beery, Sr. in the same film. Noah who played in a gazillion B westerns usually as a villain, was reputed to be a nice man unlike Wally who may not have had two friends in Tinseltown. His screen image was a total fabrication.

This Man's Navy was an entertaining wartime propaganda film, but except for Wallace Beery fans does not hold up all that well today.

Of all the movies I have seen, and that's most of them, this is by far the best one made that is primarily about the U.S. Naval Airships (Blimps) during the WW-II era. Yes there are other good LTA related movies, but most use special effects more than any real-time shots. This Man's Navy has considerably more real-time footage of blimps etc. True, lots of corny dialog but that's what makes more interesting Hollywood movies, even today. P.S. I spent 10 years(out of 20) and have over 5,000 hours in Navy Airships of all types, from 1949 through 1959. Proud member of the Naval Airship Association etc. [ATC(LA/AC) USN Retired]

Wallace Beery (as Ned Trumpet) is a World War II blimp aviator; his unbelievable war stories have helped earn him the nickname "Old Gas Bag". Though he was never a husband or (presumably) father, Mr. Berry's stories include bragging about the exploits of his talented son; probably, this is to compete with bickering Navy man James Gleason (as Jimmy Shannon). In one of an unbelievable series of happenstances, Berry meets an fatherless young man, Tom Drake (as Jess Weaver), who makes an ideal son.

Trouble is, Mr. Drake's character is unable to walk without crutches; so, the crippled man doesn't match the son in Berry's stories. While the film scores points for the inclusion of a disabled character; ultimately, it presents the condition as unworkable. Certainly, Mr. Drake's disability provided him with heroics enough too impress Berry and his Navy friends. The dramatics are highlighted by a couple of exciting battles involving Berry's war blimp; the Japanese submarine attack is particularly good. The best comic scenes are near the end; when, in India, Berry is reunited with a friendly old elephant.

***** This Man's Navy (1/4/45) William A. Wellman ~ Wallace Beery, Tom Drake, James Gleason